Mary Amanda McNeil

Mary Amanda McNeil (she/her/hers) is a Mellon Assistant Professor in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora. Her research and teaching sit at the intersections of Black studies; Native American and Indigenous studies; Afro-Native studies; women, gender, and sexuality studies; social history; and geography. McNeil completed her PhD in American studies at Harvard University. Her dissertation, which examines the spatial imaginaries of Black, Indigenous, and Afro-Indigenous political actors in Massachusetts, is entitled, "The Responsibility to Remain: Black Power and Red Power Claims to Massachusetts."

Keenly invested in public humanities, McNeil has previously worked as a research assistant for the African American Trail Project at Tufts University and as a scholar-in-residence at the Framingham History Center. Currently, she sits on the board of the Royall House and Slave Quarters, as an advisory council member to the Mellon "Just Futures"-funded public history initiative, "Reimagining New England Histories: Historical Injustice, Sovereignty, and Freedom," and as a thought partner with Tufts University Art Galleries on programming around their newest exhibition, Véxoa: We Know (Nós sabemos). Her individual and collective writing can be found in NAIS: Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association; Panorama: Journal of Association of Historians of American Art; Boston Art Review; New England Museums Now; and HowlRound Theatre Commons.

McNeil was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, and she is an enrolled citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe.